Light shutters comprise a plurality of aligned shutter elements prepared from a substance having an electro-optical effect, especially PLZT having a great Kerr constant, and a polarizer and an analyzer which are arranged in combination therewith. Such light shutters have a high response speed and are expected to be useful for high-speed printers, especially for electrophotographic printers.
Conventionally, light shutters of this type have been fabricated by forming an electrode pattern on the surface of PLZT wafer. However, they have the drawbacks of the presence of a stray capacity and high drive voltage, so that structures have recently been proposed wherein the shutter elements are formed three-dimensionally and are provided with electrodes on the opposed surfaces thereof as disclosed, for example, in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication SHO Nos. 60-159722 and SHO 60-170828.
The former publication discloses a light shutter which is prepared by forming a pattern of connection electrodes on a glass substrate, adhering a bar of PLZT formed with electrodes opposed to each other and cutting the bar at a predetermined spacing with a diamond cutter. The latter publication discloses a light shutter fabricated photolithographically, i.e. by forming electrode providing grooves in a flat plate of PLZT by chemical etching, then depositing an electrode metal over the entire surface of the plate by vacuum evaporation and thereafter etching the plate again photolithographically to form the desired electrode pattern.
Nevertheless, the former technique has the problem of involving an extremely complex fabrication process, while the latter technique also requires a complex fabrication process and has the problem that it is difficult to provide shutter elements which are operable at a reduced voltage since the grooves to be formed by chemical etching can not be made deeper (about 2 .mu.m in the disclosed embodiment).